Cultural anti-Polish sentiment: a prejudice against Poles and Polish-speaking persons – their customs, language and education; and

Stereotypes about Poland and Polish people in the media and popular culture.

A historic example of anti-Polish sentiment was polakożerstwo (in English, "the devouring of Poles") – a Polish term introduced in the 19th century in relation to the dismemberment and annexation of Poland by foreign powers. Polakożerstwo described the forcible suppression of Polish culture, education and religion on historically Polish lands, and the elimination of Poles from public life as well as from landed property. Anti-Polish policies were implemented by the German Empire under Otto von Bismarck, especially during the Kulturkampf, and enforced up to the end of World War I.[16] Organized persecution of Poles raged in the territories annexed by the Russian Empire, mainly under Tsar Nicholas II.[17][18] Historic actions inspired by anti-Polonism ranged from felonious acts motivated by hatred, to physical extermination of the Polish nation, the goal of which was to eradicate the Polish state. During World War II, when most of Polish society became the object of genocidal policies of its neighbours, German anti-Polonism led to an unprecedented campaign of mass murder.[19]

At present, among those who often express their hostile attitude towards the Polish people are some Russian politicians and their far-right political parties who search for a new imperial identity.[20]

The "Polish plumber" cliché may symbolize the threat of cheap labor from poorer European countries to "overtake" jobs in wealthier parts of Europe. On the other hand, others associate it with affordability and dependability of European migrant workers.[24]

Drunkenness is associated with Polish people in several European cultures; the French language has the phrase ‘drunk as a Pole’ (« soul comme un Polonais »), while German uses the phrase ‘drunk as a Pole on pay day’ (“betrunken wie ein Pole am Zahltage„).[25]

The book, Bieganski: The Brute Polak Stereotype in Polish-Jewish Relations and American Popular Culture, by Danusha V. Goska, analyzes stereotypes, in American popular culture, of Poles as brutish and anti-Semitic.[8]

Anti-Polish rhetoric combined with the condemnation of Polish culture was most prominent in the 18th-century Prussia during the partitions of Poland. However, anti-Polish propaganda begins with the Teutonic Order in the 14th century. It was a very important tool in the Order's attempt to conquer the Duchy of Lithuania which eventually failed because of Lithuania's Personal union with the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and conversion to Catholicism. Germany, becoming more and more permeated with Teutonic Prussianism, has never since abandoned these tactics. For instance, David Blackbourn of Harvard University speaks of the scandalised writings of German intellectual Johann Georg Forster, who was granted a tenure at Vilnius University by the Polish Commission of National Education in 1784.[26] Forster wrote of Poland's "backwardness" in a similar vein to "ignorance and barbarism" of southeast Asia.[27] Such views were later repeated in the German ideas of Lebensraum and exploited by the Nazis.[28] German academics between the 18th and 20th centuries attempted to project, in the difference between Germany and Poland, a "boundary between civilization and barbarism; high German Kultur and primitive Slavdom" (1793 racist diatribe by J.C. Schulz republished by the Nazis in 1941).[29] Prussian officials, eager to secure Polish partition, encouraged the view that the Poles were culturally inferior and in need of Prussian tutelage.[27] Such racist texts, originally published from the 18th century onwards, were republished by the German Reich prior to and after its invasion of Poland.

Frederick the Great of Prussia nourished a particular hatred and contempt for the Polish people. Following his conquest of Poland, he compared the Poles to "Iroquois" of Canada.[27] In his all-encompassing anti-Polish campaign, even the nobility of Polish background living in Prussia were obliged to pay higher taxes than those of German heritage. Polish monasteries were viewed as "lairs of idleness" and their property often seized by Prussian authorities. The prevalent Catholicism among Poles was stigmatised. The Polish language was persecuted at all levels.[30]

Being a Pole under the Russian occupation was in itself almost culpable – wrote Russian historian Liudmila Gatagova. – "Practically all of the Russian government, bureaucracy, and society were united in one outburst against the Poles." – "Rumor mongers informed the population about an order that had supposedly been given to kill [...] and take away their land."[17]Polish culture and religion were seen as threats to Russian imperial ambitions. Tsarist Namestniks suppressed them on Polish lands by force.[31] The Russian anti-Polish campaign, which included confiscation of Polish nobles' property,[32] was waged in the areas of education, religion as well as language.[31] Polish schools and universities were closed in a stepped-up campaign of russification. In addition to executions and mass deportations of Poles to Katorga camps, Tsar Nicholas I established an occupation army at Poland's expense.[18]

The fact that Poles, unlike the Russians, were overwhelmingly Roman Catholic gave impetus to their religious persecution. At the same time, with the emergence of Panslavist ideology, Russian writers accused the Polish nation of betraying their "Slavic family" because of their armed efforts aimed at winning independence.[33] Hostility toward Poles was present in many of Russia's literary works and media of the time.[34]

Pushkin, together with three other poets, published a pamphlet called "On the Taking of Warsaw" to celebrate the crushing of the revolt. His contribution to the frenzy of anti-Polish writing comprised poems in which he hailed the capitulation of Warsaw as a new "triumph" of imperial Russia.[36]

In Prussia and later in Germany, Poles were forbidden to build homes, and their properties were targeted for forced buy-outs financed by the Prussian and subsequent German governments. Bismarck described Poles, as animals (wolves), that "one shoots if one can" and implemented several harsh laws aimed at their expulsion from traditionally Polish lands. The Polish language was banned from public use, and ethnically Polish children punished at school for speaking Polish.[37] Poles were subjected to a wave of forceful evictions (Rugi Pruskie). The German government financed and encouraged settlement of ethnic Germans into those areas aiming at their geopolitical germanisation.[38] The Prussian Landtag passed laws against Catholics.[39]

After Poland regained its independence as the Second Republic at the end of World War I, the question of new Polish borders could not have been easily settled against the will of her former long-term occupiers. Poles continued to be persecuted in the disputed territories, especially in Silesia. The German campaign of discrimination contributed to the Silesian Uprisings, where Polish workers were openly threatened with losing their jobs and pensions if they voted for Poland in the Upper Silesia plebiscite.[44]

At the Versailles Peace Conference of 1919, British historian and politician Lewis Bernstein Namier, who served as part of the British delegation, was seen as one of the biggest enemies of the newly independent Polish state in the British political environment and in the Polish territories. He falsified the earlier proposed Curzon line by detaching the city of Lwów from Poland with a version called Curzon Line "A". It was sent to Soviet diplomatic representatives for acceptance. The earlier compromised version of Curzon line which was debated at the Spa Conference of 1920 was renamed Curzon Line "B".[45]

In the politics of inter-war Germany, anti-Polish feelings ran high.[46] The American historian Gerhard Weinberg observed that for many Germans in the Weimar Republic, "Poland was an abomination", Poles were "an East European species of cockroach", Poland was usually described as a Saisonstaat (a state for a season), and Germans used the phrase "Polish economy" (polnische Wirtschaft) for a situation of hopeless muddle.[46] Weinberg noted that in the 1920s–30s, leading German politicians refused to accept Poland as a legitimate nation, and hoped instead to partition Poland, probably with the help of the Soviet Union.[46]

The British historian A. J. P. Taylor wrote in 1945 that National Socialism was inevitable because the Germans wanted "to repudiate the equality with the peoples of (central and) eastern Europe which had then been forced upon them" after 1918.[47] Taylor wrote that:

"During the preceding eighty years the Germans had sacrificed to the Reich all their liberties; they demanded as a reward the enslavement of others. No German recognized the Czechs or Poles as equals. Therefore, every German desired the achievement which only total war could give. By no other means could the Reich be held together. It had been made by conquest and for conquest; if it ever gave up its career of conquest, it would dissolve."[48]

In German and Soviet war propaganda, Poles were mocked as inept for their military techniques in fighting the war. Nazi fake newsreels and forged pseudo-documentaries claimed that the Polish cavalry "bravely but futilely" charged German tanks in 1939, and that the Polish Air Force was wiped out on the ground on the opening day of the war. Neither tale was true (see: Myths of the Polish September Campaign). German propaganda staged a Polish cavalry charge in their 1941 reel called "Geschwader Lützow".[62]

Inexperienced Royal Air Force commanders initially stereotyped veteran Polish fighter pilots as inept and reckless, refusing to let them fly combat missions until they chose to do so against orders; they went on to achieve a celebrated record in the Battle of Britain. British military commanders Bernard Montgomery and Frederick Browning scapegoated Polish troops and command for their defeat at the Battle of Arnhem, stereotyping them as 'difficult' and 'incompetent'. Later military commentators have generally concurred that the Poles had a distinguished role in the battle and that their commander's ideas could have won it for the Allies, while the allegations of Montgomery and Browning were hypocritical, self serving and even political, given the Great Power politics of the day.[63]

Poland's relationship with the USSR during World War II was complicated. The main Western Powers, the US and UK, understood the importance of the USSR in defeating Germany, to the point of allowing Soviet propaganda to vilify their Polish ally.[64] During World War II, E. H. Carr, the assistant editor of The Times, was well known for his leaders (editorials) taking the Soviet side in Polish-Soviet disputes. In a leader of 10 February 1945, Carr questioned whether the Polish government in exile even had the right to speak on behalf of Poland.[65] Carr wrote that it was extremely doubtful to him whether the Polish government had “an exclusive title to speak for the people of Poland, and a liberum veto on any move towards a settlement of Polish affairs” as well as that the “legal credentials of this Government are certainly not beyond challenge if it were relevant to examine them: the obscure and tenuous thread of continuity leads back at best to a constitution deriving from a quasi-Fascist coup de Etat”.[65] Carr ended his leader with the claim that “What Marshal Stalin desires to see in Warsaw is not a puppet government acting under Russian orders, but a friendly government which fully conscious of the supreme importance of Russo-Polish concord, will frame its independent policies in that context”.[65] The western Allies were even willing to help cover up the Soviet massacre at Katyn.[66]

In Britain after 1945, the British people initially accepted those Polish servicemen who chose not to return to a Poland ruled by the communist regime. The Poles resident in Britain served under British command during the Battle of Britain,[68] but as soon as the Soviets began to make gains on the Eastern Front both public opinion and the Government of the UK turned pro-Soviet and anti-Polish.[69] Supporters of the socialists falsely and deliberately made the Poles out to be "warmongers", "anti-Semites" and "fascists".[70] After the war, the trade unions and Labour party played on the fears of there not being enough jobs, food and housing. There were also anti-Polish rallies.[70]

In 1961, a book was published in Germany entitled Der Erzwungene Krieg (The Forced War) by the American historical writer and Holocaust denierDavid Hoggan, which argued that Germany did not commit aggression against Poland in 1939, but was instead the victim of an Anglo-Polish conspiracy against the Reich.[71] Reviewers have often noted that Hoggan seems to have an obsessive hostility towards the Poles. His claims included that the Polish government treated Poland's German minority far worse than the German government under Adolf Hitler treated its Jewish minority.[72] In 1964, much controversy was created when two German right-wing extremist groups awarded Hoggan prizes.[73] In the 1980s, the German philosopher and historian Ernst Nolte claimed that in 1939 Poland was engaged in a campaign of genocide against its ethnic German minority, and has strongly implied that the German invasion in 1939, and all of the subsequent German atrocities in Poland during World War II were in essence justified acts of retaliation.[74] Critics, such as the British historian Richard J. Evans, have accused Nolte of distorting the facts, and have argued that in no way was Poland committing genocide against its German minority.[74]

During the political transformation of the Soviet-controlled Eastern bloc in the 1980s, the traditional German anti-Polish feeling was again openly exploited in the East Germany against Solidarność. This tactic had become especially apparent in the "rejuvenation of 'Polish jokes,' some of which reminded listeners of the spread of such jokes under the Nazis."[75]

Western-media references to German death camps in German-occupied Poland[edit]

The expressions offensive to Poles are attributed to a number of non-Polish media in relation to World War II. The most prominent is a continued reference by Western news media to "Polish death camps" and "Polish concentration camps". These phrases refer to the network of concentration camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland in order to facilitate the "Final Solution", but the wording suggests that the Polish people might have been involved.[76][77][78]

The Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as Polish organizations around the world and all Polish governments since 1989, condemned the usage of such expressions, arguing that they suggest Polish responsibility for the camps. The American Jewish Committee stated in its 30 January 2005, press release: "This is not a mere semantic matter. Historical integrity and accuracy hang in the balance.... Any misrepresentation of Poland's role in the Second World War, whether intentional or accidental, would be most regrettable and therefore should not be left unchallenged."[79]

On 30 April 2004, a CTV News report made reference to "the Polish camp in Treblinka". The Polish embassy in Canada lodged a complaint with CTV. Robert Hurst of CTV, however, argued that the expression, "Polish death camp", is common usage in news organizations including those in the United States, and declined to issue a correction.[80] The Polish Ambassador to Ottawa then complained to the National Specialty Services Panel of the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council. The Council did not accept Hurst's argument and ruled against CTV stating that the word ""Polish"—similarly to such adjectives as "English", "French" and "German"—had connotations that clearly extended beyond geographic context. Its use with reference to Nazi extermination camps was misleading and improper". CTV broadcast the decision during prime time.[81] The Polish Ministry of Foreign affairs has stated, "That example of a successful campaign against the distortion of historic truth by the media – and in defense of the good name of Poland – will hopefully reduce the number of similar incidents in the future."[81]

A similar example was the phrase "Polish Nazis" used in relation to non-Polish paramilitary groups operating on German-occupied Polish soil during World War II,[82] disseminated by Norwegian State Broadcasting Corporation, NRK.[83] The Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem officially considered this claim by NRK a falsification "offensive to historical truth".[82]

In 2007, Polish people living in London reported 42 ethnically motivated attacks against them, compared with 28 in 2004.[87][88] The Conservative MP Daniel Kawczynski, of Polish origin himself, said that the increase in violence towards Poles is in part "a result of the media coverage by the BBC" whose reporters "won't dare refer to controversial immigration from other countries."[89][90][91][92] Kawczynski voiced his criticism of the BBC in the House of Commons for "using the Polish community as a cat's paw to try to tackle the thorny issue of mass, unchecked immigration" only because against Poles "it's politically correct to do so."[89]

In 2009, the Federation of Poles in Great Britain and the Polish Embassy in London with Barbara Tuge-Erecinska raised a number of formal complaints – including with the Press Complaints Commission – about news articles that defamed Poles. The PCC arranged a deal between the Federation and the Daily Mail, which ran the articles.[93][94][95][96][97][98] The Embassy also questioned the veracity of The Guardian report by Kate Connolly about an alleged "storm of protest in Poland" in response to a film about a Jewish underground resistance movement.[99] The Polish Embassy stated on 11 March 2009, disproving the claim: "This embassy has been in touch with [the film's] only distributor in Poland, Monolith Plus, and we have been told that this film has not experienced any form of booing, let alone been banned by any cinemas."[100]The Guardian was also forced by PCC to publish an admission that another article by Simon Jenkins, from 1 September – which accused Poles of wartime suicide – "repeated a myth fostered by Nazi propagandists, when it said that Polish lancers turned their horses to face Hitler's panzers. There is no evidence that this occurred."[101][102]

The Guardian has been noted for a number of other controversies. On 14 October 2009, Nazi-hunter Efraim Zuroff alleged that: "the second world war narrative [...] has been distorted since independence and the transition to democracy to make it more palatable to their electorate and to minimize the role of local collaborators in Holocaust crimes."[103] On 20 October 2009, The Guardian's Jonathan Freedland said: "We are meant to be friendly towards the newest members of the European Union. But the truth is that several of these "emerging democracies" have reverted to a brand of ultra-nationalistic politics that would repel most voters in western Europe. It exists in Poland". In response to the above attacks Timothy Garton Ash wrote in the same paper on 23 December: "In my experience, the automatic equation of Poland with Catholicism, nationalism and antisemitism – and thence a slide to guilt by association with the Holocaust – is still widespread. This collective stereotyping does no justice to the historical record."[104]

Writing in The Guardian, then-UK Foreign SecretaryDavid Miliband, who is of Polish descent himself; described Poland's governing Law and Justice party as "far right".[105][106] His language sparked a protest by Daniel Hannan of The Daily Telegraph, who said on 29 October 2009, that the British Foreign Secretary David Miliband should apologise to the people of Poland. Hannan wrote that Miliband's "increasingly unhinged allegations have been greeted with horror in Poland."[107] However, more diatribes reminiscent of wartime propaganda included also The Daily Telegraph's own article by Julian Kossoff who wrote on 13 November 2009, about the alleged "anti-Semitism embedded in Polish history," an "episode of Polish bloodlust and nightmarish slaughter" and "the unspeakable guilt of the Polish collaborators."[108]The Daily Telegraph'sGerald Warner complained about Kossoff's "insulting attack on Catholics and Poles which grotesquely misrepresents historical fact and which, if leveled at almost any other targets, would probably be characterized as a 'hate crime'."[109] There is, however, an over one millennium-long record of positive relations between Poles and Jews.[110][111] In addition to that, the largest contingent of Righteous among the Nations who saved the Jews during World War II is the Polish contingent.[112]

On 6 October 2009, Stephen Fry was interviewed by Jon Snow on Channel 4 News[128][129] as a signatory of a letter to then-Conservative Party leader David Cameron expressing concern about the party's relationship with the right-wing Polish Law and Justice Party in the European Parliament.[130] During the interview, Fry stated: "There has been a history, let's face it, in Poland of a right-wing Catholicism which has been deeply disturbing for those of us who know a little history, and remember which side of the border Auschwitz was on..." The remark prompted a complaint from the Polish Embassy in London, as well as an editorial in The Economist and criticism from British Jewish historian David Cesarani.[131][132][133][134] Fry has since posted an apology on his personal weblog, in which he stated: "It was a rubbishy, cheap and offensive remark that I have been regretting ever since... I take this opportunity to apologize now."[135][better source needed] On 30 October 2009, the Chief Rabbi of Poland, Michael Schudrich, complained about this new British political row playing on a "'false and painful stereotype that all Poles are antisemitic', whereas the truth was that the problem was around the same there as elsewhere in Europe."[136]

In January 2014, a Polish man, whose helmet was emblazoned with the flag of Poland,[137] claimed he was attacked by a group of fifteen men outside a pub in Dagenham, London.[138] Photos were taken of him and his motorbike. The victim blamed xenophobic speeches of the Conservative Prime MinisterDavid Cameron.[139]
During the same month in Belfast there was seven attacks on Polish houses within ten days, in which stones and bricks were thrown at the windows.[140]

In November 2014, Lidl supermarkets were exposed by the BBC for threatening staff with termination of employment for speaking Polish during work and at their tea breaks.[141]

In a 2018 interview, Anna Azari, the Israeli ambassador to Poland, said that "Anti-Polonism occurs not only in Israel, but also in Jewish circles outside Israel." She also said that her embassy was working with nongovernmental organisations in Poland to develop "cooperation between companies and people."[146]

On 14 November 2007, Fox aired an episode of Back to You called "Something's Up There", which contained a controversial anti-Polish slur. The slur involved Marsh trying to convince the show's lone Polish-American character, Gary, to go bowling after work by saying: "Come on, it's in your blood, like kielbasa and collaborating with the Nazis." Fox later apologised on 20 November 2007. They vowed never to broadcast the line of dialogue again in repeats and/or syndicated broadcasts. Fox stated that, "The line was delivered by a character known for being ignorant, clueless, and for saying outlandish things. Allowing the line to remain in the show, however, demonstrated poor judgment, and we apologise to anyone who was offended."[147]

In August 2005, a series of alleged organised attacks against Polish diplomats took place in Moscow,[148] which prompted the then-Polish President Aleksander Kwaśniewski to call on the Russian Government to stop them.[149] An employee with the Polish embassy in Moscow was hospitalised in serious condition after being assaulted in broad daylight near the embassy by unidentified men. Three days later, another Polish diplomat was beaten up near the embassy. The following day the Moscow correspondent for the Polish daily Rzeczpospolita was attacked and beaten up by a group of Russians. It is widely believed that the attacks were organized as revenge for the mugging of four Russian youth in a public park in Warsaw by a group of skinheads, several days earlier.[149]

"Polish jokes" belong to a category of conditional jokes, meaning that their understanding requires knowledge of what a Polish joke is. Conditional jokes depend on the audience's affective preference—on their likes and dislikes. Though these jokes might be understood by many, their success depends entirely on the negative disposition of the listener.[151]

Presumably the first Polish jokes by German displaced persons fleeing war-torn Europe were brought to the United States in the late 1940s. These jokes were fueled by ethnic slurs disseminated by German National Socialist propaganda, which attempted to justify the Nazis' murdering of Poles by presenting them as "dreck"—dirty, stupid and inferior.[152] It is also possible that some early American Polack jokes from Germany were originally told before World War II in disputed border regions such as Silesia.[153]

There is debate as to whether the early "Polish jokes" brought to states such as Wisconsin by German immigrants relate directly to the wave of American jokes of the early 1960s. A "provocative critique of previous scholarship on the subject"[154] has been made by British writer Christie Davies in The Mirth of Nations, which suggests that "Polish jokes" did not originate in Nazi Germany but much earlier, as an outgrowth of regional jokes rooted in "social class differences reaching back to the nineteenth century." According to Davies, American versions of Polish jokes are an unrelated "purely American phenomenon" and do not express the "historical Old World hatreds of the Germans for the Poles. However, Hollywood in the 1960s and 1970s imported the subhuman-intelligence jokes about Poles from old Nazi propaganda."[155]

For decades, Polish Americans have been the subject of derogatory jokes originating in anti-immigrant stereotypes that had developed in the U.S. before the 1920s. During the Partitions of Poland, Polish immigrants came to the United States in considerable numbers, fleeing mass persecution at home. They were taking the only jobs available to them, usually requiring physical labor. The same ethnic and job-related stereotypes persisted even as Polish Americans joined the middle class in the mid-20th century. "The constant derision, often publicly disseminated through the mass media, caused serious identity crises, feeling of inadequacy, and low self-esteem for many Polish Americans." In spite of the plight of Polish people under Cold War communism, negative stereotypes about Polish Americans endured.[156]

Since the late 1960s, Polish American organizations have made continuous effort to challenge the negative stereotyping of the Polish people once prevalent in American media.[156] The Polish American Guardian Society has argued that NBC-TV used the tremendous power of TV to introduce and push subhuman intelligence jokes about Poles (that were worse than prior simple anti-immigrant jokes) using the repetitive big lie technique to degrade Poles. The play called “Polish Joke” by David Ives has resulted in a number of complaints by the Polonia in the US.[157] The "Polish jokes" heard in the 1970s were particularly offensive, so much so that the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs approached the U.S. State Department about that, however unsuccessfully. The syndrome receded only after Cardinal Karol Wojtyła was elected Pope, and Polish jokes became passé.[158] Gradually, Americans have developed a more positive image of their Polish neighbors in the following decades.[156]

According to writer Joanna Michlic, the term is used in Poland also as an argument against the self-critical intellectuals who discuss Polish-Jewish relations, accusing them of "anti-Polish positions and interests." For example, historian Jan T. Gross has been accused of being anti-Polish when he wrote about crimes such as the Jedwabne pogrom. In her view, the charge is "not limited to arguments that can objectively be classified as anti-Polish—such as equating the Poles with the Nazis—but rather applied to any critical inquiry into the collective past. Moreover, anti-Polonism is equated with anti-Semitism."[163]Adam Michnik wrote for the New York Times that "almost all Poles react very sharply when confronted with the charge that Poles get their anti-Semitism 'with their mothers' milk'." (see: Yitzhak Shamir's outburst in an interview with Jerusalem Post, 8 September 1989.) Such verbal attacks – according to Michnik – are interpreted by anti-Semites as "proof of the international anti-Polish Jewish conspiracy".[164]

For the 1994 anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising, a Polish Gazeta Wyborcza journalist, Michał Cichy, wrote a review of a collection of 1943 memoirs entitled Czy ja jestem mordercą? (Am I a murderer?) by Calel Perechodnik,[165] a Jewish ghetto policeman from Otwock and member of the "Chrobry II Battalion",[166] alleging (as hearsay) that about 40 Jews were killed by a group of Polish insurgents during the 1944 Uprising.[167] Unlike the book (later reprinted with factual corrections), the actual review by Cichy elicited a fury of protests,[166] while selected fragments of his article were confirmed by three Polish historians.[168] Prof. Tomasz Strzembosz accused Cichy of practicing a 'distinct type of racism,' and charged Gazeta Wyborcza editor Adam Michnik with 'cultivating a species of tolerance that is absolutely intolerant of antisemitism yet regards anti-Polonism and anti-goyism as something altogether natural'."[169] Michnik responded to the controversy, praising the heroism of the AK by asking: "Is it an attack on Polish people when the past is being explored to seek the truth?".[170] Cichy later apologized for the tone of his article,[171] but not for the erroneous facts.[166]

The notion of anti-Polonism has been used in some instances as a justification for Polish antisemitism. Cardinal Józef Glemp in his controversial and widely criticized speech delivered on 26 August 1989 (and retracted in 1991)[172] argued that the outbursts of antisemitism are a "legitimate form of national self-defence against Jewish 'Anti-Polonism'."[173] He "asked Jews who 'have great power over the mass media in many countries' to rein in their anti-Polonism because 'if there won't be anti-Polonism, there won't be such antisemitism among us'."[174] Similar concerns, but with less display, were echoed in Rethinking Poles and Jews by Robert Cherry and Annamaria Orla-Bukowska who noted that anti-Polonism and anti-Semitism remain "grotesquely twinned into our own time. We cannot combat the one without combating the other."[175] In 2001, PhD Andrzej Leszek Szcześniak published Judeopolonia - the Jewish state in Poland, explaining the origins of pre-war Jewish saying 'our tenements, your streets'. In 2002, Stanisław Wysocki published Antypolonizm Żydów polskich (English: Antipolishness of the Polish Jews) naming incidents in Polish-Jewish relations, criticised by Prof Jerzy Tomaszewski as selective, unrepresentative and ignorant.[citation needed]

^Pula, James S. (1996). "Image, Status, Mobility and Integration in American Society: The Polish Experience". Journal of American Ethnic History. University of Illinois Press. 16 (1): 74–95. JSTOR27502139.

Tadeusz Piotrowski: Genocide and Rescue in Wolyn: Recollections of the Ukrainian Nationalist, Ethnic Cleansing Campaign Against the Poles During World War II, McFarland & Company, 2000, ISBN0-7864-0773-5.

Dr. Dariusz Łukasiewicz: Czarna legenda Polski: Obraz Polski i Polaków w Prusach 1772-1815 (The black legend of Poland: the image of Poland and Poles in Prussia between 1772–1815) Wydawnictwo Poznanskiego Towarzystwa Przyjaciól Nauk, 1995. Vol. 51 of the history and social sciences series. ISBN83-7063-148-7. Paper. In Polish with English and German summaries.